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Category: Jane Austen

Diane’s Jane Austen Centre Wishlist

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Every once in a while I browse the Jane Austen Centre’s online gift shop. I’ve ordered gifts from the catalogue in the past, most notably the I love Darcy totebags as gifts to my writing friends one Christmas.

If I had money to burn, here is what I’d buy:

The caption reads: “Feel like Jane Bennett and dream of your Mr Bingley!”
I don’t know if I’d dream of Bingley, but I love the nightgown
Price: $51.84


Maybe I’d actually write in a journal if I owned this one.
Cost: $48.60

Because one cannot ever have too many totebags and this is a very pretty one!
Cost: $21.06
A coffee mug!

“I am half agony, half hope.”
The romantic line Capt. Wentworth wrote to Ann.
Cost: $24.30

This CD features music Jane would have played.
Cost: $19.44
That’s enough of an indulgence for now. Any of these items are affordable (some costumes from the giftshop are not), if extravagant. Furthermore, I don’t need any of them!
What is on your wishlist? Jane Austen Centre or otherwise, what things do you pine for, things you really could afford, but that seem too frivolous to actually purchase?
Don’t forget that Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Enemy is on sale at eHarlequin right now and will be on bookstore shelves Aug 23.
Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged , | 11 Replies

Summer Shorts

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I’m not talking about the kind you wear. Not that I wear shorts myself. My knees have these ugly rough patches, so I only wear shorts for gardening–which is probably why I have those rough patches. But I digress.

Earlier this week Amanda said she liked shorter stories on these hot days of summer. I tend to read longer books in the summer, at least while on vacation, because that’s when I have more time. I prefer a longer, meatier read anyway, but I also enjoy the occasional anthology of novellas or short stories. I think they’re a great way to sample new authors.
They’re also fun to write. I’ve published one novella, “The Wedding Wager”, which came out in the Zebra anthology HIS BLUSHING BRIDE. Regina Scott, Alice Holden and I were asked to write novellas with a June Bride theme. I agreed to the deal, but I was determined not to do something all saccharine and Precious Moments with it. Luckily, I came up with the idea of a wager. The heroine, reluctant to accept the rakish hero’s proposal of a marriage of convenience, bets him that he won’t be able to resist so much as kissing another woman for three months. It’s silly and fun and I had a blast writing it. I think the other authors enjoyed writing their stories, because the anthology became an RT Top Pick.
How about you? Do you enjoy short stories and novellas, or do you prefer longer reads? Does it depend on the season?
In honor of the Riskies Anniversary, I’ll give away a copy of HIS BLUSHING BRIDE to a commenter chosen at random. I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.
Elena

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged , | 17 Replies

Seeing Metropolis in the Metropolis!

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I’ve been revising a manuscript that is out on submission to editors, and that’s going pretty well, but it’s really dull to talk about–hey, I removed this person’s motivation and bolstered that one’s–so I thought I’d talk about something really cool I experienced last night.

(And just realized this is our Anniversary Week, and totally forgot to stay on topic! But, you know, that’s par for my course, so there you go).

Metropolis was made in 1927 by Fritz Lang, a classic film revered by film buffs and critics and such. I knew of it, but had never seen it. So last night, in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, they showed the restored version of Metropolis while Alloy Orchestra played the soundtrack live. And I got to see it.

It was incredible. It’s hard to imagine this film was made twenty-three years before Akira Kurosawa–another ahead-of-his-time innovator, and one of the best directors ever–achieved accolades for Rashomon. Plus, even though it took place in some version of a mechanized future, it resounded with implications for the Regency world–at one point, there is mention of the Upper Ten Thousand–and the society’s stratification is ghastly and inviolate. Like the Regency’s could be, unless a governess rose above her station to fall in love with a duke, and vice versa.

The clip above is when the “Man-Machine” is given the form of a human, and brought to a high society nightclub to dance.

I would definitely have not enjoyed the movie so much if it weren’t shown in the park on a lovely summer evening with amazing music being played. But the movie does make you think about industry, and religion, and class structure, and mechanization, and all sorts of things. Plus, it looks really, really cool.

Megan
PS: I am glad to offer a copy of my long out-of-print book, A Singular Lady, to a randomly-selected commenter who says what their favorite dance scene is in a film.

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged | 16 Replies
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